25/05/2011

Ten film projects were selected at the second 2011 session of the Ile-de-France Regional Support Fund for Technical Film and Audiovisual Industries. Standing out among them is Something in the Air by Olivier Assayas (Carlos [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], Summer Hours [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Clean [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), which will start production at the end of June. Its producer MK2 successfully pre-sold the film (among others to IFC for North America and NFP for Germany) at the Cannes Festival Film Market.

Scripted by the director, the film is set in the chaos of the early 1970s and centres on a high-school student trying to find his way in life, between the left wing’s drift towards violence, the maze of an unattainable revolution and his doubts about a troubled artistic vocation. After serving as a member of this year’s Cannes competition jury, the director is currently completing an open casting call for young actors on the streets of Paris.

Something in the Air is produced by Charles Gillibert for MK2. Its €5.6m budget includes co-production support from France 3 Cinéma and Vortex, pre-acquisitions from Canal+ and Ciné+ (formerly CinéCinéma), and €260,000 from the Ile-de-France region, where 32 days of the 42-day shoot will take place, with scenes also set to be shot in the United Kingdom and Italy. As well as handling international sales, MK2 will also manage French distribution.

Ile-de-France also decided to back Léos Carax’s Holly Motors (Pierre Grise Productions – €410,000 in funding); Alice Winocour’s Augustine (Dharamsala – €410,000); Carine Tardieu’s Du Vent Dans Les Mollets (“Wind in the Calves”, Karé Productions – €480,000); Réné Féret’s Madame Solario (Les Films Alyne – €310,000); Julien Abraham’s La Cité Rose (“The Pink City”, Ex Nihilo – €410,000); Michel Muller’s Henaut Président (Axel Films – €378,000); and Italian director Michele Placido’s The Lookout (Babe Films – €480,000).

The fund is also supporting Michel Ocelot’s animated film Kirikou and Men and Women (Les Armateurs – €480,000) and Emmanuel Roy’s documentary Pour Quelques Poussières (“For a Few Cents”, produced by Atopic – €70,000).

(Translated from French)